Local band Bhoomi ("Earth") join the BBC election train
What can a band of musicians do to help people prepare for natural disasters?
Well, if you are West Bengal’s hit band Bhoomi, you use your popularity to encourage people to take simple steps that could save lives and limit the damage from floods and cyclones.
In February this year, Bhoomi helped the BBC World Service Trust raise awareness about disaster preparedness through a high-profile public concert. The 3000 seat stadium in Kolkata was packed – many in the audience lived in communities vulnerable to disaster. The concert blended live music with vital information about how to reduce the risks and impact of disasters, such as ill health, exploitation and loss of property and livelihoods. The band wrote a signature tune on disaster preparedness for the concert. With the help of Bhoomi’s music and a host of Bengali celebrities, the audience was reminded that they should have an emergency plan in place, ensure that they store chlorine tablets in case water is spoiled by the monsoon rains and keep important documents in a safe, waterproof place.
I got the chance to reunite with Bhoomi tonight at Howrah train station. It was late and they managed to find an empty spot-lit section of the platform to take up their instruments and sing about a common theme in their music: nature. Bhoomi, which means “earth” in Bengali, attracted late night travellers smiling as they heard familiar songs. Whether they’ve read it in the newspaper or heard it in a folk song, a reminder of a natural calamity can help encourage people to reflect on how they can prepare themselves and their families.
In a country where 428 million people watch television, 185 million read newspapers and 163 million listen to the radio, it makes sense to use mass media to provide live-saving information to communities before, during and after an emergency.
India is one of the worst affected countries in the world by natural disasters. Of the 32 states and union territories, 22 are disaster-prone. About five tropical cyclones form in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea every year and half of these are considered severe. Here in West Bengal, over half of the state is susceptible to floods.
Save the Children (Bal Raksha, Bharat), which supported our disaster risk reduction project in West Bengal, arranged for 100 people from the coastal areas vulnerable to disaster to travel to Kolkata for the Bhoomi concert earlier this year. Today I met Save the Children’s Programme Coordinator, Biswarup Banerjee, and asked him what the feedback had been. He said that many had been struck by the fact that people living in the city were talking about preparedness, so why shouldn’t they do the same?
The Trust’s year-long project focusing on disasters involved NGOs, the government and the news media in West Bengal and Orissa to raise the profile of disaster preparedness. Through media skills training, the Trust aimed to improve the capacity of NGOs dealing with disaster risk reduction to use the media as an effective tool for communicating.
Save the Children works on preparing people for disasters as well as relief and rehabilitation. Along with many of the NGO partners involved in our project, Save the Children trains vulnerable communities to reduce risk, and in the aftermath of disaster it provides food, clothing, shelter, hygiene kits and safe drinking water. Many NGOs are doing great work to prepare communities, like in this photo where people vulnerable to floods are learning how to swim. But the message of preparedness needs to reach beyond those directly involved in local NGO activities. It needs to reach decision makers and communities who are currently underserved by governments or NGOs.
People from vulnerable communities learn how to swim
Biswarup told me that he has noticed the impact of our training on Save the Children’s local partner NGOs. After recent floods, one of the NGOs we trained in media skills was able to secure media coverage in a leading Bengali daily. This media coverage raised the profile of the issue and put pressure on local officials to provide essential services to the affected community. “If it is in the media, the government pays attention. Media has a lot of influence.”
Biswarup went on to say that media training helped NGOs “understand the media pulse, demonstrate how to present stories in an interesting way and establish contacts between NGOs and the local media.” I asked if he thought the project was sustainable? “Definitely,” he asserts. “The biggest indicator of sustainability is that the local NGO set up a media unit within the organisation. They realised the importance of the media in a way that was missing completely before.”
The serenade from Bhoomi was a fitting way to leave West Bengal and head to our next destination, Bihar. There I’ll speak to a female activist and “citizen journalist” about gender equality in her state.
